2012 COE Faculty Senate Awards

2012 COE Faculty Senate Awards

Frank Pottenger receives the 2012 COE Lifetime Achievement Award

Frank Pottenger was nominated by CRDG Interim Director Kathleen Berg and CRDG Associate Specialist Truc Nguyen for the 2012 COE Lifetime Achievement Award. Berg shared, “For the last 45 plus years, Dr. Pottenger’s work in science education as part of CRDG can only be described as extraordinary, innovative, seminal, diverse, impactful, cross-national, collaborative, award-winning…” Nguyen added, “Frank’s work in curriculum development and teaching has been groundbreaking and transformational. I aspire to be as productive and admired as Frank is, both as a scholar and as a tremendously well-respected person.”

 Dr. Frank Pottenger joined CRDG in 1966, where he led the science faculty in the creation of award winning inquiry-based curricula for elementary and secondary school science. His groundbreaking Developmental Approaches in Science, Health and Technology (DASH), a six-year sequence for elementary school; Foundational Approaches in Science Teaching (FAST), a three-year middle school program; and The Fluid Earth/The Living Ocean, a high school marine science course, have been used by millions of students in Hawai‘i, throughout the mainland United States, and internationally. He was one of the founders of the Pacific Circle Consortium (PCC) from which he received the Arthur R. King Jr. Award for Curriculum Innovation in 2010. Pottenger’s work in curriculum innovation has improved teaching practice in schools across the region. Over the course of his career, he has created programs and provided professional development for teachers in health and science throughout Micronesia; co-designed PCC’s The Ocean Project; and engaged in science curriculum collaboration and experimentation with colleagues in Japan, Korea, Australia, and New Zealand. More recently, Dr. Pottenger worked on cross-national civic education curriculum development and teacher preparation with colleagues in eastern Russia.

Paul Brandon receives the 2012 COE Exceptional Contributions to Scholarship Award

Paul Brandon was nominated by CRDG Interim Director Kathleen Berg for the 2012 COE Exceptional Contributions to Scholarship Award.  Berg shared, “I nominated Paul based on recent awards and recognitions that come on the heels of an already outstanding, long, and productive scholastic career. He is most deserving of an award for his scholarship, which is well-respected both locally and nationally.” 

 Dr. Paul Brandon, a professor of education, has been with the CRDG since 1989. As a member of the educational psychology graduate faculty, he also directs thesis and dissertation committees and teaches evaluation classes. Brandon’s extensive work in evaluation includes a non-profit research and evaluation organization, a city employment testing organization, a private K–12 school serving native Hawaiians, and UH Mānoa. During his tenure at the college, he has often taken on the role of principal or co-principal investigator for university and agency grant projects. He has won two best evaluation awards from Division H of the American Educational Research Association (AERA) who chose Brandon as their Research on Evaluation Special Interest Group’s first annual Distinguished Scholar in April 2011. Beginning January 2013, he will serve a three-year term as Editor-in-Chief of the American Evaluation Association’s topical journal, New Directions for Evaluation.

Truc Nguyen receives the 2012 COE Leadership Award

Truc Nguyen was nominated by CRDG Interim Director Kathleen Berg for the 2012 COE Leadership Award.  Berg said, “Dr. Nguyen exemplifies exceptional leadership that demonstrates commitment in ways that move programs, departments, units, and the entire college in positive directions.”

 Dr. Truc Nguyen, an associate specialist at CRDG, has worked in the COE since 1998. In addition to chairing the College of Education Faculty Senate, representing the college on the Mānoa Faculty Senate, leading the Faculty Distributed Learning Advisory Committee on the All Campus Council of Faculty Senate Chairs, and serving as director of the Hawai‘i Educational Research Association (HERA), she authors and teaches science and computer literacy courses; develops instructional strategies for existing science curricula; oversees the development of science, economics, and computer distance-learning courses; creates websites; develops evaluation and assessment modules; and coordinates professional development workshops and conferences. She was the principal investigator on a very successful Internet Safety project and has served for five years on Hawai‘i’s Internet Safety Awards Team which received the 2011 Director’s Community Leadership Award from the FBI at the U.S. Department of Justice. She was one of Phi Delta Kappa (PDK) International’s 2010–11 Class of Emerging Leaders.